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5 Podcasts That You Should Add to Your Playlist

You’ve likely heard about podcasts but have you joined the masses and started listening to them yet? Podcasts are a really great way to stay up to date on industry news and trends, professional (and personal) development, to get inspired about a topic of interest, or even just to relax and escape the daily grind.

Here’s a list of five playlist-worthy podcasts for the modern Marketing Communications professional. Whether you are a responsible for office internal communications, marketing communications for your brand globally or in a niche market of manufacturing, real estate or any other industry…these podcasts are worth your time.

1. Gary Vee

Gary Vaynerchuk is an entrepreneur with a portfolio of businesses under his belt. He’s spent his career building multi-million-dollar business. His podcasts cover everything he’s learned along the way from entrepreneurship to social media and more.

2. Kerwin Rae

Kerwin Rae is an entrepreneur, investor, business strategist and international speaker who helps business succeed. His punchy, no-holds-barred, “nothing is impossible” attitude is contagious and motivating, and worth a listen.

3. Scott & Alison Stratten

Scott and Alison Stratten take a bit of a different approach to their podcast. Rather than talking about what to do, they talk about what NOT to do first, which makes way for conversations about what you need to do in your marketing efforts. Hence, UnMarketing.

4. Simon Sinek

Simon Sinek has brought the theme ‘Start with Why’ to the forefront in many businesses. His first TED talk in 2009 is ranked the third most watched on TED.com. He is an optimist, a best-selling author and renowned leader.

5. Harvard Business Review

Harvard Business Review features conversations on women in business, leadership, management, and an advice show on workplace dilemmas. Like their articles, the thought-leadership is both educational and engaging.

PowerPoint is dead: Communicate better with Digital Signage

Welcome to the new age of engaging your employees and customers.

In an age where we have smart marketing communication software, smartphones, smart watches and smart homes, why is your business still struggling to showcase your brand, communicate your value, and engage your employees and customers on an outdated PowerPoint presentation?

PowerPoint has often been the go-to tool to create presentations – companies use it every day to solve a variety of communication needs from meeting presentations to front office displays to lunch room monitors. It may be a free tool that features static images and text on a screen, but it isn’t bringing your brand to life and getting your employees and customers excited about who you are and what you do, or can do, together.

When you think about your employee and customer experience, consider the level of engagement that each audience has with your brand. A study of U.S-based financial executives by Forbes Insights and SilkRoad revealed that an engaged workforce has a direct impact on the customer experience and in turn the success of an organization.

Are you sharing company information, employee successes, community events, etc.? Your answer may be ‘yes’ but if you’re sharing this information on a computer monitor via a PowerPoint presentation, your answer might as well be ‘no’.

The challenge is, your PowerPoint presentation is out of date almost as soon as you hit the save button. And the cost you invest in one of your employees, or yourself, plugging away to create a 20-slide, mediocre presentation for you to run on a computer monitor in your front lobby to show your customers who you are and what you do, turns out to be a massive waste of time and budget. Let’s face it, for effective communication with real people, PowerPoint is dead.

To prove it, we recently heard from a real estate brokerage that hired an employee to work for $20 an hour, 6 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 8 weeks… that’s $4,800! This scenario is common to many other stories we have heard in different markets. The employee was to build a PowerPoint presentation as part of the business’s communication strategy to engage staff, agents and customers for just one office location. The presentation would run on a TV in their front lobby and showcase a slide about their agents, a few slides for current listings, a few slides for open houses, and so on. So what’s the problem? Well, to start:

The presentation would be out of date as soon as a property sold, or an open house ended.
Showcasing many agents in one presentation is LONG and boring. Versus dynamically highlighting an agent birthday, welcome new agents and acknowledge top performers of the week on a real-time, automated basis.
And how do you repeat this model to numerous offices? That $4,800 multiplied out sure gets expensive compared to the cost of digital signage software for real estate.
Also, the visual design was limited to the ability of the creator. People are visual learners, the layout and design to intrigue their eye and make a memory in their mind is an art and a science. This was a big miss for the office that was using just a PowerPoint.
The worst part of this real estate office effort to better communicate in the office…general staff feedback was, oh that’s it?

Sad but true, a PowerPoint on a TV run by a person isn’t the smartest move.

What’s the solution? In the case of the real estate brokerage, their intentions were good, their execution was limited to the tool they settled for. Their vision of hiring the employee full time to update and manage their communication strategy and plan, curate content, and refresh the PowerPoint on a weekly basis was falling short on ROI. That’s before they investigated digital signage and how a low-cost solution could not only fit well within their budget but also showcase real-time, automated information on beautiful, illuminated digital displays throughout their office. Such as solution frees up staff time to do more meaningful work that a busy office always needs help with.

Digital signage isn’t just for real estate offices looking to showcase their listings in their front windows or feature open houses on mall kiosks. Digital signage is for:

Factory employees to stay informed of new HR policies or Health and Safety tips;
Community centres to keep residents up to date on news and event information in their area;
Transit authorities to communicate schedules, delays, and emergencies to passengers;
Hospitals and clinics to promote wellness, share emergency information, or to direct traffic via interactive maps.
And that’s not all…

You should be spending your time thinking about what you’re communicating and to whom, not how you’re going to do it. The opportunity for you to share information and data, target communication to the appropriate audience in the appropriate location, on clean, organized and branded templates is available to you and extremely cost (and time)-effective when you consider the latter.

A blog in The Business Journal referred to dynamic digital signage as fresh, immersive, and a way to clearly distinguish yourself from your competitors.

Isn’t it time you took your business communications to the next level?

Digital Signage Monitors vs. TV – What Are the Differences?

That old adage about using the right tool for the job definitely applies in digital signage – with made-for-purpose commercial displays a wiser choice for most jobs than TVs that may look similar, but are very different inside.

Using flat panel TVs for commercial purposes will almost certainly save on upfront costs, and then cost much more in the long run because of the need for repairs and replacements, and the inability to manage the screens remotely.

While large-format flat panel televisions are sleek and carry some of the same attributes as commercial digital signage displays – like Ultra HD 4K resolution and such technologies as HDR – they’re not engineered for commercial applications.

Here are the big differences

Engineering

TVs are designed to operate for relatively casual use, running a few hours daily. They aren’t engineered to run for 16 hours a day, or even 24/7. They also aren’t engineered to change their orientation and be used in portrait (vertical) mode – a common format in digital signage and advertising.

Management

TVs are built for home use and have audio/video connectors designed to hook up with cable TV and streaming services. They don’t have or need connectors that allow for remote management. Commercial digital signage displays, by comparison, come with connectors – such as RS-232 – that allow technical people to remotely access, monitor and troubleshoot issues.

Tampering

It seems trivial, but a huge problem with using TVs as commercial displays is remote controls accidentally or willfully shutting screens off. Commercial screens can block remote control signals and have routines to force screens back on if shut off.

Brightness

TVs are designed for homes, and don’t need or have the brightness levels required to cut through the ambient light and glare of commercial environments. While there are entry-level digital signage displays that have the same brightness as TVs, they can also be as much as 8X brighter, depending on need for light conditions, window installation or even outdoor signage.

Warranty, Wear and Tear

Televisions do not, typically, carry warranties that consider heavy commercial use. A TV warranty tends to be one year, and limited, versus three years for many to most commercial displays. Network operators who use TVs instead of more costly commercial displays tend to either not understand the implications and risks or make the calculation that they’ll have to replace a percentage of their screens over time.

What to expect when using TVs versus Commercial Digital Displays

Here’s what can play out when a digital signage network operator decides to go with TVs versus commercial display panels.

Prices vary by manufacturer and specs, but let’s say an operator saves $500 by choosing a TV over a same-sized commercial display panel. That’s significant, for sure. But while a commercial display is rated for, on average, five years of duty, a TV will be lucky to get three. So that $500 saving is wiped out by the need to reinvest in a new screen two years earlier. Add on that the likelihood, over that three years, that a maintenance technician will need to go on site at least once to troubleshoot a darkened screen (because there are no remote management tools in place). That service call will cost at minimum $150 an hour, and take two or three hours because of travel and time on site.

Digital signage solutions providers regularly field customer questions, and get objections, when they quote projects that use commercial displays. More familiar with Best Buy and Walmart prices, their sticker shock is understandable. It may seem like the service provider is trying to make extra money on a project by selling more expensive equipment, but they’re actually trying to save money for all concerned. They don’t want unhappy customers, and they don’t want the grief.

Think of commercial digital signage displays as tools. Professional tradespeople tend to have power tools and devices that look very similar to what many of us have on basement and garage workbenches. But anyone paying attention knows they’re more powerful, rugged and built to last. It’s the same thing here. Commercial displays are built for the job and built to last. And a digital signage project is nothing if the screen isn’t reliably on and looking good.

Outdoor Digital Display Signage: what you need to know

Marketers naturally want to get their messages in the places where people will be, which is why we all see more and more digital signage showing up on city sidewalks and public plazas.

But using an outdoor screen presents a lot of challenges – notably the impact of sunlight and harsh winter weather. Selecting and using the wrong panel can result in digital signage that’s either hard to see, or offline, because it wasn’t properly protected from the elements.
At ITESMEDIA, we’ve worked for years with everyone from media companies to city governments to specify, design, procure, deploy and manage smart outdoor display panels that are built to last. We have the City of Montreal – with its sultry summers and snow-filled, cold winters – as our working lab.

Questions to ask for Outdoor Signage

Our engineers have worked through the issues faced by anyone wanting to use dynamic signage outside and in environments that are anything but controlled. End-users need to ask several key questions of any company that’s being considered to help develop a solution:

How does the display handle glare from direct sunlight?
How does the display handle the “thermal load” from direct sunlight – all the heat that tries to bake the electronics on a mid-July afternoon?
How do the cooling fans deal with dust and debris from the streets?
How does the sign stay dry in driving rains?
And finally, how long will the sign and overall unit last?

End-users don’t so much need the deep technical answers for all these questions, but they do need assurance that the vendor has indeed thought about these things and can provide solid responses.

Future-proofing is the other key consideration – ensuring that the engineering design of the sign and its enclosure can be upgraded, modified or supplemented with extra technologies. That’s important because these outdoor panels are far more expensive than their indoor counterparts, and the time needed to realize a return on the investment is therefore longer.

So why put dynamic signage outside?

The most common application is advertising – with media companies replacing their street-level posters (usually plastic poster prints illuminated by rear lighting) with digital, dynamic signage that can be updated on the fly and enables full motion-graphic and video.

More and more governments, medical and educational organizations, and large private businesses are using digital signage displays in their public areas and building campuses to help people find their way around. Daylight-readable directories and mapping – at decision points like main gates and plazas – guide people to where they want and need to be. Unlike printed maps and directories, dynamic signage allows people to look up what they need via touchscreens, and even take information away, like walking directions, on their smartphones.

The Next Big Demand for Outdoor Signs

The next big demand for signs in outdoor spaces is emerging in the so-called Smart City movement. An outdoor display panel will not only be a screen but can have sensors that monitor things like street-level temperatures, crowd movements, dangerous gases and noise. What’s on the screen may be more about making a street, plaza or area “work” better.

ITESMEDIA is working with the City of Montreal on a smart cities initiative that has received global attention. All through the busy central district of the old city, dynamic signage at key intersections informs motorists of available parking lots – even updating by the minute the number of empty spots.

Each of the signs (some have several displays stacked) is connected to the cloud via a wireless network and gets updates from a central ITESMEDIA server. In addition to wireless the signs may be connected via LTE and Fiber. That server is getting fresh data, by the minute, from the parking lost management systems to connected garages in the area.

Our custom solution was designed to make the central district smarter – getting motorists off crowded streets quicker, reducing frustration and improving air quality by reducing overall traffic and idling.

Large flat panel displays are now very common in our business and personal lives – so much so that it would be easy to assume they’re all the same. But TVs and digital signage displays are built for very different needs and demands, and when a screen goes outdoor, the difference is dramatic.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Digital Signage but Didn’t Think to Ask

Keeping up to date with the newest marketing tech can be a struggle for any business owner. The space changes so quickly, so how can you know if the latest cutting-edge solution is right for you? Dynamic digital signage is one such solution. Understanding the ins and outs will help you make the most informed decision about whether it’s a product that works for your business. Below, we address some of the general aspects of dynamic digital signage to help point you in the right direction.

What is a digital signage content strategy and why make one?

What Can Dynamic Digital Signage Be Used For?

Digital signage has a variety of uses that can be broken down into three main categories:

Communicating with Employees

“Since we’ve started using digital signage, we no longer hear our employees say, ‘I didn’t know.'”

Workplace communication can be tough. To help facilitate communication, companies can use digital displays and screensavers to broadcast important information to their employees, such as company messages, performance indicators, safety reminders, and more. These messages can serve a variety of purposes: they can be informative, educational, motivational, or simply entertaining. Some companies even broadcast information to help prevent workplace accidents. Louis-Philippe Péloquin, Director of Communications at ArcelorMittal, said that since installing digital signage, they “no longer hear [their] employees say, ‘I didn’t know.'” Improved communications can lead to increased motivation, higher productivity, and improved safety.

Communicating with Customers

“McDonald’s restaurants now display their menus digitally, but they still sell the same Big Mac.”

Businesses large and small are communicating with their customers in new ways. Many companies are seeking solutions to reach their customers differently. Digital displays paired with dynamic content management software are an innovative way to increase awareness about a product or service and can be updated in real time. Digital signage is also four times as likely to attract a customer’s attention than a traditional display. For example, large multinationals like McDonald’s use digital signage to display and update their menus. Some RE/MAX, Coldwell Banker, and Century 21 real estate brokerages, on the other hand, use it to promote the properties they have for sale, both in displays outside their offices and within their offices themselves. Digital displays are sleek and tech forward, and brokerages can use them to elevate the perception of their brand among both customers and employees by sharing office data: sales figures, active listings, properties in escrow, testimonials, and more. Learn more about how one real estate agency owner, Claude Allard, radically changed his business with digital signage solutions in our full case study.

Communicating with Users

These days, engagement is the buzzword on every marketer’s lips. Users expect to be engaged, whether they are waiting for the bus, navigating an unfamiliar city, or visiting the doctor. Digital signage is a means for connecting and engaging with users in a meaningful way. For example, the City of Montréal makes driving easier by using digital signage to let drivers know about road work and available parking spaces throughout the city. McGill University Health Centre uses digital screens and terminals to help visitors find their way around the hospital. And several municipalities use digital signage to inform public transportation users about delays, schedule or route changes, and general information like the weather and news.

The Most Popular Industries Using Digital Signage

The Digital Signage Ecosystem

While relatively simple, dynamic digital signage requires specific hardware and software components to work properly. The diagram above shows how all these components communicate with each other. Let’s take a closer look at the basic digital signage components.

Software is the heart of the digital signage ecosystem. You might not be able to touch it, but it’s what controls and sends content where you want, when you want it.

Digital Signage Software

In the digital signage ecosystem, software is the core. It may be intangible, but it’s what controls and sends content to the desired screens according to a predetermined schedule. For the past several years, this software has often been Cloud-based and accessible from any internet-connected platform. It has undeniable advantages, but when it comes to the important elements of reliability and security, some software comes up short. Buyers should make sure that their providers use a solid and secure infrastructure, such as Microsoft Azure. If you’re unsure of how to choose the best software for you, check out our article about buying the right software.

At ITESMEDIA, we’ve developed our own proprietary digital signage software called ITESLIVE. It allows for automated communications management and even allows you to connect directly to your own databases to update information like KPIs or projections seamlessly and dynamically. Allow us to convince you: schedule a free online demo today.

Digital Displays: Not Your Ordinary TV

Displays are where your content is dynamically shown. Displays look like televisions but have features that make them suitable for commercial use, such as extended service lives, waterproofing, and increased brightness. Digital displays can be used on their own or can be put together to create video walls of any size. The screensaver of a computer can also be used to display content. Finally, digital LED panels, like those that show the number of available parking spaces in a given location, are yet another example of a type of digital display.

Interactive Displays

Interactive displays take it up a notch: like digital displays, they are screens that display content but also integrate an advanced tactile interface to provide users with a dynamic, interactive experience. They can be used anywhere, from shopping centers to help visitors locate a particular store, to real estate offices to show potential buyers the features of various properties. Even tablets, which have become increasingly popular in the past few years, can use used to deliver and display interactive digital content.

Media Player

The media player is the link between the digital signage software and your screens. It is what allows you to display the content created in your content manager on your entire network of screens. It’s generally quite small and has the same basic functionality as a computer. It can connect to the internet via an Ethernet cable, Wi-Fi, or even a cellular LTE network and plugs into your screens using an HDMI cable.

Another alternative technology that has been developed recently and that is being used more frequently is called SoC, which stands for system on chip. This system is less expensive than an external media player but doesn’t always offer the right level of performance. It can also be more expensive to perform maintenance on the signage if there’s an issue. We can help you determine whether a media player or SoC technology is right for you.

All You Need to Know About Content Strategy

Most digital signage providers will tell you that developing content strategy is an essential step in a successful digital signage project. They are right! However, the content strategy is often misunderstood by customers, but also, by suppliers.

Let us set the record straight and share with you the important elements of content strategy to consider when planning your digital signage project.

Everything You Wanted to Know About Digital Signage but Didn’t Think to Ask

What is Content Strategy?

First, it’s important to understand the role of content strategy in digital signage: it’s the result of the analysis of your company’s communication goals. The content strategy is developed to effectively meet the diverse needs of a company. Concretely, the process involves determining how the content will be displayed on the screens; what kind of content will be displayed in the different parts of the screen depending on the location of the screen, the target audience and the time of day.

Moreover, it is at this stage of your digital signage project that you will decide on the ideal location to install your screens. Remember that the installation of screens outside the establishment serves a completely different purpose than the installation of screens inside.

How does outdoor digital signage survive Québec’s winter ?

Developing a content strategy is a crucial step in planning a digital signage project. The strategy will provide a guideline to your messages: what to publish, to whom, when, where to install the monitors, etc. The strategy will also allow you to determine the font size of the text. Make sure the messages you broadcast are easily readable from where the screens are installed.

If you want to set up your digital signage project without a content strategy, you will not be as successful as you expect. Think about it, how do you capture attention and engage a target audience if the messages you broadcast are inappropriate, inadapted, or worse, uninteresting? Depending on the industry and the sociodemographic profile of the employees, their interest varies greatly. You will lose time and resources in communicating messages that are not personalized and do not have a target audience.

ARCELORMITTAL CASE STUDY WATCH FULL VIDEO NOW

A good content strategy will allow you to establish the specific content you want to broadcast on a particular screen in order to trigger a change in behaviour in a particular group of employees.

This is why this step requires a great deal of thinking. It is best to write the messages first, and post the content later. Knowing the target audience of each screen installed in different locations of the company will allow you to broadcast the right messages to those concerned.

How to Develop a Content Strategy?

Developing a content strategy, as mentioned previously, requires a great deal of thinking. The majority of our customers do not know where to start or which direction to take to begin with their project. That’s why we suggest you get help from content strategy experts to support you. They will help you analyze the communication needs of your company.

That being said, you can already begin the reflection process on your own before getting help from an expert. Here are some questions you can ask yourself to help guide your thinking process:

What are the important messages you would like to communicate?
What kind of information would capture the attention of my target audience?
Where would be the best location to install screens based on the movements of the target audience?
How much time is needed to understand the content?
What performance indicators could be used to motivate the target audience?

What Content is Interesting to Broadcast?

Depending on the location of the screen and the target audience, it is possible to broadcast several types of content. Here are some examples of interesting content according to the location:

At reception areas or in waiting rooms, you can capture the attention of clients with the following content:

Capsules “Did you know …”?
Real-time statistics on health and safety at work
A corporate video
A calendar of upcoming public events
Current projects and mandates
News and weather forecasts

In office spaces, a cafeteria or an employee lounge, you can motivate employees with the following content:

Educational videos to perfect knowledge
Real-time statistics on health and safety at work
Key performance indicators
Birthdays of employees
Ongoing projects
Special Mentions
Upcoming social events

5 types of messages you should communicate now to improve your internal communications

5 Ways to Improve OHS with Digital Signage

4 KPIs your Employees Need to Know

In conclusion, it is essential to develop a content strategy before diving head first in a digital signage project. You can determine the strategy yourself, but make sure you still get the advice of an expert in order to achieve the best results.

With a good content strategy, your digital signage project will be successful!

Using Digital Signage: Food Service Industry

As we previously discussed in the first article of this series, the real estate industry is increasingly using digital signage to communicate with clients. In the same line of thoughts, we would like to give you another example of the use of dynamic digital display but this time, in the food service industry.

In recent years, you may have noticed the rising number of digital screens in restaurants. Many fast food chains now use digital screens. Initially, these screens were used in restaurants to broadcast the menu just over the cash registers. It was an innovation for several reasons: the colors were dynamic, people had a sense of novelty and the paper menus were replaced for something greener.

Easy to update and with infinite possibilities

Nowadays, the digital screens still serve the same purpose, but many new features are available. You can make your screen dynamic with scrolling menus; you can adapt the content of your screens based on the time of the day (breakfast, lunch or dinner); and as a restaurant owner or manager, you can easily change prices or feature specials or on sale items by updating your screens.

Dynamize your screens with tactile use for customers

You can also get touch screens and invite your customers to place their orders by themselves. This feature is recent, but is already very popular in fast food restaurants. With this type of screen, customers can go so far as to pay for their order without the help of a cashier.

For customers, there is still a sense of novelty and autonomy and it allows the restaurant owner to use more staff to execute orders in the kitchen. These screens are particularly helpful during high traffic periods and help the restaurant run more efficiently. Here’s an example of a restaurant located in a touristy region of Québec who wanted to dynamize the presentation of the menu.

Click here to see the screens above in live see

To finish, there are so many ways to use digital screens in the food service industry. You can get an interactive screen so that your customers can place and pay for their order at once, allowing you to use more staff in the kitchen, or display a different menu based on the time of the day, or feature your specials or on sale items in a dynamic way.

Feel free to contact us for a demonstration at your office.

We are happy to answer any questions you may have!

Phone (toll-free): 1 866 553-5462 Ext .: 250

Email: click here

How does outdoor digital signage survive Québec’s winter ?

Outdoor digital signage is a very effective way to reach a broad audience. During summer, things are simple because of the mild weather conditions which help the screens and the installations function properly. However, several factors can affect your installations during the winter season. For this reason, we decided to write an article to help you understand how outdoor digital signage holds up during the winter season.

1 – Product quality

Quality is the most important factor to take into consideration when buying your screens and installations. Knowing that you will install them in a location where weather conditions are changing and can sometimes be hostile (cold, humidity, extreme heat, etc.), it is important to invest in a good product that can withstand such changes in temperature. We suggest that you seek advice from an expert in the industry who will fully understand your needs and present you with quality products that can withstand the four seasons.

A high quality display has a built-in ventilation system to prevent moisture damage. Outdoor screens installed in Las Vegas (extreme heat conditions, prolonged exposure to the sun) and outdoor screens installed in Québec may seem similar at first sight, but the one located in Québec will have to withstand the harshness of winter and must therefore be heated and better ventilated . A screen designed to operate in extreme conditions will be waterproof and insulated to prevent damages from water, cold, sun exposure, extreme heat and other natural phenomena.

Also, it is important to buy a screen with strong luminance (brightness) so that people looking at its content are able to see what is being broadcast even when the monitor is directly facing powerful sunlight. If your screen is not suitable for the outdoor (but is a quality product), you won’t be able to see the content displayed on the monitor. You can test it with your smartphone or your laptop; you can barely see the content. Note that the minimum recommended brightness for an outdoor screen is 2500 NITS.

2 – Remotely control your screens

Get an operating system that will allow you to control your screens from your computer. This way, you will be able to know immediately when a problem comes up. Most of the time, you can fix a problem directly from your computer. It’s important to know at all times what is happening on your screens and to keep control of it. In addition, you can change the content of your screens from your computer. For example, if your screens are located in a ski resort, you can inform the skiers of the next weather alert.

3 – The installation of a protective housing

To ensure that your screens are well protected outside, you must have a heated and ventilated protective box covering each screen. The protective housing has to be transparent and very rigid as it must resist heat, frost, snow, rain, wind. etc. It will act as a shield for the screen which we want to protect as much possible. Moreover, with such protection, your eoutdoor digital displays are less likely to be vandalized or stolen. It is better that the protective housing be damaged rather than your screens.

To sum up, if you decide to invest in outdoor digital signage, make sure to do your research beforehand. It is important to take into consideration the orientation of your screen, the level of brightness, the vibrations in the ground, the weather conditions and the risks of vandalism. Also, a very crucial yet often forgotten detail: make sure to have access to electricity and the Internet!

If you have any questions about outdoor digital signage, do not hesitate to contact an expert!

By phone (toll free): 1 866 553-5462 ext: 251

By email : Click here

Why did we migrate to Microsoft Azure?

ITESMEDIA has decided to go ahead and migrate its servers to the Microsoft Azure CLOUD. Every year, we strive to provide a high quality service to our customers so they can get the most benefits out of it. As a customer of ITESMEDIA, you have a guaranteed access to the latest updates of the applications you use.

“A significant part of our income is invested in the improvement of our software suite,” says Richard Fortin, CEO at ITESMEDIA. “Migrating our servers to Microsoft Azure is a part of our strategic plan to strengthen our leadership position in digital signage over the country.”

Here are 4 reasons why we are making this technological investment:

1- Protecting our customers’ data

Over the past 18 months, ITESMEDIA has redoubled its efforts to improve the protection of its customers’ data.

First, we set up a strengthened encryption methodology. Then, we decided to move our servers to Microsoft Azure. We made this decision because Microsoft is the first CLOUD supplier to adopt the new international standard ISO 27018 regarding privacy in the CLOUD.

2- Trusting an approved CLOUD service

The Azure solution has been designed to handle all workloads. More than 66% of Fortune 500 companies rely on Azure, which offers SLA contracts as well as technical support and an analysis of how services run continuously.

3- Business continuity

Microsoft Azure offers a plan for its users to access their applications and data at any time. If you are out of office without access to your computer, you can still recover your data because it safely lives on the CLOUD. This is business continuity and it’s the reason why ITESMEDIA stores the data of its customers on Azure.

4- The evolution of servers according to the growth of the company

By using Microsoft Azure, ITESMEDIA ensures that its servers are always able to meet the highest demand for its web applications at any time. In other words, we migrated to Azure to offer a robust and flexible infrastructure that will be available at all times.

Because Azure is simple and safe, ITESMEDIA moved its servers to this CLOUD. Our company wanted our data as well as our customer’s data to be safe (in terms of backup and confidentiality). While other CLOUDS are more at risk with regards to data piracy, Azure is the only one to have adopted the new ISO 27018 international standard.

If you have to deal with a digital display situation during a trip or if your computers and monitors are broken, you can always find your data. We wanted to provide our customers an easy way to work from anywhere at any time. In this way, Azure is useful if your business runs in different countries or cities.

We are here to help! Rest assured that we are always there to answer your questions about this change.

Toll-free : 1 866 553-5462 Ext.: 251

By email : Click here

Business innovation using digital signage (Part 2)

Now that you know some different ways to improve your company’s internal communications (see part 1 of the article), let’s focus on ways to improve communications with your customers. This article offers you 3 different ways to do it, using digital display.

Communicating Performance Indicators

Communicating your performance indicators is important for both your employees and your customers, but for different reasons. As we saw in the article about the importance of communicating your performance indicators to your employees, you can also keep your customers informed about important data. The goal is to expose customers to statistics that could apply in their respective companies.

We took the example of shipment numbers, but you could also display a table of quality control data or keep track of a project’s development. You can also disclose your statistics about the number of workplace accidents to your clients. Show that your facilities are safe and that you care about the safety of your employees.

Providing Educational Content

In your waiting area, use your screens to promote your business. Use this space to tell the story of the company, expose its values, present its builders, etc. Also offer games with choice of answer on your screens in order to make your clients’ wait more enjoyable. They will learn more about your company and will recognize themselves in some of the answers.

Video capsules can also be used to broadcast news or information. If your company participates in charitable activities, sponsors an event or unveils its new infrastructure, for example, you need to let everybody know! Your customers want to see your achievements. They want to see that your company is involved in its environment.

Introduce Your Employees to the Customers

Your clients always like to know who is dealing with their file, who works for them. On your screens, you can talk about some employees. Explain what they actually do in your company, what projects they are working on, their actions and their implication. A video capsule of these employees can also be displayed so that they tell their own story.

Try to introduce each of your employees and alternate the broadcast. You will have diversified content that your customer base is not likely to see twice. This method helps to humanize the work that is done and to highlight the work of your employees. It is a winning combination for both your clients and your employees as it shows your appreciation for the work done.

With these two articles on the different methods to innovate in your communications (internal and with your customers), you can see that the methods are similar for both types. However, even if the form is similar, the content must be different. The most important is to tailor your message to the target audience; customers or employees. Data and information is not seen the same way by everyone. The goal is to capture everyone’s attention and produce quality content that they will remember.